Last Modified: Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 12:16 a.m.

The word that needs to be there is “exonerated,” Mayor Suzanne Atwell said.

Actually, I said it first, and asked if she agreed. But she did, with enthusiasm.

“I want that cloud to be gone from his head,” she said. And the same goes for Marlon Brown, the deputy city manger under Bartolotta, who still works in the same position.

“These people were exonerated,” and that needs to be made clear, Atwell insisted. “Their lives and reputations have been held hostage.”

A large part of that was an overreaction 14 months ago by the CEO of Sylint, she said. That was soon after the city hired that company to look into a citizen's suspicions that email and other e-records had been purposely dumped.

For my part, if Sylint and its tech-savvy CEO ever laud their work for Sarasota with an aim to get other consulting gigs, Bartolotta should testify against them.

Bartolotta could explain how the alarming words of Sylint CEO John Jorgensen, when he first found oddities in Sarasota's outmoded and under-maintained city computer system, soon cost Bartolotta his job.

At a very public meeting, computer expert Jorgensen gave city commissioners the strong impression that he had found huge red flags, all-too possibly indicating a conspiracy to destroy records, a crime.

If so, one would have to assume the intent was hiding something nefarious.

Bartolotta had enemies happy to buy that, but other people did, too. And though Jorgensen called for caution and uncertainty, that notion was overwhelmed by his urging that law enforcement be brought in right away, without waiting for Sylint to dig deeper into computer records and IT problems.

It sure sounded like an emergency. Conspirators might be scrambling to cover tracks and could get away without fast action. Two Bartolotta-hating commissioners, Shannon Snyder and Paul Caragiulo, felt justified calling for firing Bartolotta then and there.

Less than two weeks later, Atwell and Commissioner Willie Shaw joined them to “ask” for Bartolotta's resignation.

Atwell said the city needed to be able to trust the city manager and, guilty or not, that had become impossible.

With a well credentialed computer expert like Jorgensen saying what he was saying, maybe so.

But Bartolotta's testimony against Sylint, should he ever give it, ought not focus just on what Jorgensen said then, or how long it took Sylint to issue the final report that included no findings of wrongdoing. Just as significant, to me: The report gives the impression that Sylint's expertise served the city oh-so well — the computer system is so much better now! — but omits the way harsh consequences resulted from a bogus accusation that Jorgensen boosted.

Bartolotta wasn't the most popular city manager. He tackled tough issues in ways that made enemies, and his time in that job could have come to end before too long anyway. But that would have been the usual end of a city manager's stint.

Instead, Bartolotta had to go job hunting trailed by news of being ousted as a suspected criminal conspirator.

Despite that, Atwell said, and no matter his skills and integrity, Bartolotta “was not a good fit for the city” and that had become evident. The suspicions Jorgensen increased, false though they were, made that worse. So “it wasn't going to work” to keep Bartolotta, she said.

Any regrets about forcing him out so fast that way?

“No, no, no, no no. None,” Atwell said.

Hmmmm. As a psychologist, maybe Atwell should ask herself why she is so adamant. Surely there should be a qualm in there.

Terry Turner, the only city commissioner who voted to keep Bartolotta last year, says there should be lots of them, because the city did irreparable harm to Bartolotta and Brown.

“Shame on us,” Turner concluded in a guest column.

I'm pretty sure he meant shame on his fellow commissioners. But looks like they have exonerated themselves.

Tom Lyons can be contacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com or (941) 361-4964.

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